


Believing

by hellscabanaboy



Category: Tokyo Babylon
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:44:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellscabanaboy/pseuds/hellscabanaboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hokuto knows better than to get involved in Subaru's work, but sometimes it's worth it to her anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Believing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lisan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisan/gifts).



> Thanks to Meg and Lily for beta reading!

Within a week of moving to Tokyo, Hokuto has been to a party, started planning one of her own, begun a mental list of the best boutiques around, and if she hasn’t yet been on a date it’s because of her own choosiness. The floor of her apartment is a mess of new clothes, magazines, her schoolwork dotted haphazardly around as she remembers it between more relevant things. There's really no help for it. She'll worry about getting it sorted when it needs to be sorted. For now there are much more important things to think about.

"There's a sale coming up at Parco!" she announces, glancing up from her magazine. Subaru's apartment is a total contrast to her own, sparsely furnished and bland - try as she might to spread her own clutter among the two of them. Well, it's generous of her. He could use a little of it. "Come with me, Subaru? We can get some more things for the apartment, and I know I saw a jacket there that would look great on you."

"I have work this weekend," he replies. "We could go if I get it taken care of quickly, I guess?"

"Then it's settled!"

Subaru gives her a wan smile. "Thanks, Hokuto-chan. But I need to finish this homework, too. The curriculum's a little different from back home, so I can't fall behind."

“What kind of sister would I be if I let you do that?” Hokuto demands, crossing over to peer at his book. “Here, let me help.”

“Thanks, but-”

Hokuto makes a face at the title. “Okay, right. Classical literature is your department. Tell me when you’ve gotten to English, I’ll practice with you.”

She paces, winds up at the window as she always does. In the dimming sun the streets are starting to glow with headlights, and the buildings are lighting up as far as she can see. For a moment she’s sorry to be inside, but the hat she’s been trimming is by the window too, and she’s seen the perfect idea for it in a display she’d passed the other day - as long as she adds a little flare - and she loves this just as much, her own cozy box with the noise and bustle just outside. Their own personal shelters.

“Subaru,” she says, picking up the hat and settling down at the window in a rustle of petticoats. “Are you happy living here?”

Subaru’s gone back to studying his book, his expression somewhat forlorn now, but he looks up at the question and cocks his head.

“Of course I am,” he says. “I wanted to come, didn’t I?”

That’s not what matters, she starts to say - but of course she doesn’t know, not really. Even if their hearts beat in time it doesn’t mean they’re beating to the same thing. So she picks up a length of ribbon, holds it up to the hat and studies it in the warm glow of the sunset, and smiles. “Good,” she says, as Subaru turns back to his book. “That’s what I want.”

***

"Here you are!" Hokuto exclaims, holding out a tray with both hands. "Hokuto Sumeragi's homemade chocolate cake! You should consider it a fortunate time to be home sick, when you have me around!”

Nakahara Miho is a thin, quiet girl at the best of times, but now she seems almost sunken into the bed, a flush rising on her cheeks the only color in her face. She’s still taken the trouble of getting dressed in a neat blouse and vest, which makes Hokuto smile at her new friend’s resilience. "Sumeragi-san, you didn't need to bring it all the way here..."

"I told you, it's Hokuto-chan!" Hokuto sits down at the end of the bed in a rustle of fabrics, rifles through her bag. "I hate to say I've brought you this, too - it's the homework you've missed. I've copied my class notes along with it, at least..”

"Thank you," says Miho. She puts it to the side without glancing at it.

"I didn't realize you lived alone," Hokuto says, glancing around her. The apartment is only one room, though it’s large and airy enough, and though the furnishings are sparse it’s clear Miho has put thought into them. “I could come more often, if you wanted. I’m sure it’d be more lively with people around.

"No!" Miho exclaims, the flush on her cheeks growing deeper. "It's fine. Really, I’d rather go out.”

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about." There’s a tiny kitchenette in the corner, and Hokuto rummages for plates to serve the cake. "Subaru and I live alone too, you know. It can get lonely without family around, but there are nice things about it, too.”

“But you don’t have family here, do you?”

“No,” says Hokuto. Now that she thinks of it, Miho’s never mentioned that at all.

Miho's quiet for a long time, picking at a slice of cake in tiny delicate bites. Finally she puts her plate down, pushes the bits of cake around on the plate while she speaks. "My father got me the apartment. He got married again a while back."

“I don’t see why that means you’d move out, though. Especially if you don’t want it.”

"He doesn't want a reminder of his last marriage," she says, and she's quiet but her fingers are tight around her fork. "He thinks it’d make him lose face, to have a family like that. Though it's not like I'm not ashamed of living like this, either."

Hokuto frowns indignantly. “What a deadbeat!” she exclaims, waving her fork through the air as if to dismiss the man. “Doesn’t he consider you at all?”

“He pays for the apartment,” Miho says. “So it’s not like he’s abandoned me. But he never really acknowledged me either, even before this. So there wasn’t anything to be surprised about, even then.”

"Just because he's done it before doesn't make it right," Hokuto counters. "You have to know that, or you wouldn't be so upset."

Miho's eyes widen, then narrow, as though she's surprised that Hokuto's noticed. But for all her attempts at matter-of-factness, she's wound tight, her lips pressed together until they blend with the whiteness of her face.

"Look," says Hokuto. "I can't tell you what you should or shouldn’t feel. Only you can decide that. Just that you  
haven’t done anything to be ashamed of, either way.”

"I'm sorry to bring up something like this," says Miho, "when you were nice enough to come to help with schoolwork."

"I don't mind--" starts Hokuto, but Miho's propped herself up in bed, smiling wanly but determinedly, and Hokuto’s made that face herself often enough that she knows how to answer it.

"Then let's talk about something more exciting!" she says, returning the smile with a grin of her own. "Let me tell you what’s been going on at school - not that I pay attention to gossip, but just this once. And don't just leave your cake! Don't you realize how lucky you are!?"

***

"So this is where Subaru-kun lives," Seishirou muses. He glances around the apartment with an inquisitive eye, and Hokuto blushes a little on her brother’s behalf. She’s managed to get it a little better furnished, at least - new stools for the high kitchen counter, brightly colored drapery on the windows - but Subaru just has no eye for decor.

“That’s right, it’s your first time here, isn’t it?” Not that Hokuto’s going to forget what place Sakurazuka Seishirou takes in their lives. But it doesn’t do to keep track too carefully, either. “Sorry it’s nothing much, but we like it.”

“Oh, not at all,” he says, pulling up a seat to the counter as Hokuto retreats into the kitchen to start dinner. “It’s impressive that the two of you have gotten such a nice place.”

"Job security," Hokuto sighs. "It's the upside to being Japan's most powerful medium. There aren't many people who can do what Subaru does, so his work is always in demand."

"It sounds like you don't think it's worth it."

"That’s Subaru’s decision, not mine." Hokuto takes out a knife and cutting board, concentrates on chopping the vegetables into tiny even pieces. "But you think the same, don't you? Why else would you be working as a vet, when you’re a practitioner."

"Oh, my power's nowhere near as in demand as Subaru-kun's." Seishirou comes around the side of the counter, peers down at her cooking."Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help?"

"Absolutely!" She waves the spoon towards the doorway, as if to shoo him away. "What kind of hostess do you think I am! And what kind of sister would I be if I let my brother’s beau come into the house and made him do housework! You wound me, Sei-chan.”

"All right, all right." Seishirou laughs as he backs away, and as always it's infectious; Hokuto laughs along without even thinking. "I yield before your housewifery, Hokuto-chan."

"Don't forget it!" she crows. "You won’t be joking about it once you’ve had a chance to taste my cooking.”

Seishirou returns to his seat, and Hokuto sets a pan on the stove and tips the vegetables in, a smile crossing her face.

"You'd think it'd pay better than veterinary work, though; being an assassin."

She thought she'd had better timing; Seishirou doesn't even give her the satisfaction of choking on his glass of water. Instead he laughs, and Hokuto knows she doesn’t need to laugh with him this time, but she does anyway; she may as well.

“When are you going to stop suspecting me,” he says, hands up and smile shining. “You know there could be any number of Sakurazukas across Japan. You can’t believe all of them are mysterious assassins.”

"No." Hokuto's turned back to her work, tearing off a leaf of cabbage and shredding it into the pan, and she smiles calmly down at her hands as she tears it into minute pieces. "I doubt most of them are onmyouji on a par with the head of the Sumeragi, either."

Seishirou starts to draw breath to speak, but just then Hokuto hears the key turn in the lock, and the door opens with a thud.

"Ah, Subaru-kun's home!" Seishirou beams.

Hokuto finishes stirring the cabbage into the pan and trails after him into the front hallway. Subaru still stands in the doorway, his hat clutched in his hands and his coat still on, and he's looking up at Seishirou with an expression she knows is a mirror of her own when she looks down at the lights of the city at night, or into a roomful of friends, or sometimes, in between teasing, at him. She can't remember the last time she's seen it on him.

She could fall a little bit in love with Sakurazuka Seishirou, right then, just for being the man who brought that life to her brother's face. But love isn't everything.

Later, after Seishirou has blown a kiss to Subaru's cheek and left in a cloud of laughter, Subaru takes up a dish towel and asks, "Hokuto-chan, what do you think of Seishirou-san?"

Hokuto laughs, and washes two more plates before she comes up with an answer.

"He's charming,” she says. “And friendly, and funny - hey, he’s even handsome. You must be a lucky guy, Subaru.”

“So you like him?” asks Subaru, pausing in his drying.

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

***

Hokuto’s used to waiting for Subaru to get home from work. Seishirou must be as well, by now, since he’s started coming to dinner so often. Still, she’s started to wonder where he is by the time she hears the door slam open and rushes round to see him limping inside, supporting himself against the wall.

"An ikiryo," Subaru gasps. "She isn't a ghost at all."

It’s not unusual for Subaru to come home from work looking more or less a fright; the work is a psychic strain at the best of times, and a job that requires the next head of the Sumeragi isn’t likely to be an easy one. What’s unusual is for him to still look this desperate. He even tries to resist when Hokuto pulls him along to bed, and frankly she’s more concerned with that than with the details of the job that had done it to him.

"It's the spirit of someone who's still alive,” supplies Seishirou. “Separated from their body to take vengeance on someone who’s wronged them. It takes a lot of rage or grief to power something like that.”

Hokuto glances up at him. "See, you do know a lot."

"That's why I couldn't just destroy her," says Subaru. "She's a part of the soul of whoever cast her. If she's destroyed, it'll cause massive psychic damage, or even..."

Hokuto manages to guide him to the bed, props him up long enough to gulp down a glass of water. When he’s finished, he slumps against her without a fight.

“So what did our guy do to get one of these on him?” she asks. “Maybe it would at least help to know.”

“Probably,” Seishirou says for him. “If someone could reason with its caster, even get them to consider other options, it would be easier to dispel it without harm. But vengeance spirits aren’t known to be reasonable.”

“I’ve hardly spoken to the client at all,” Subaru sighs. “It seems he’s very busy - it’s his assistant that I’ve talked to most.”

Hokuto’s already fetching the file with his client records, flipping through until she finds today’s. “Right, he’s in management, and pretty big, it looks like. Nakahara Kensuke...hm…”

To be fair, coincidences happen. It’s only that they happen a little more around the Sumeragi.

“I’ve put a binding on her,” Subaru continues. “She’s not doing any more damage, for now. But she’ll break through it eventually. It’s in the building that he works, so if it happens while he’s there during the day…”

"Then it won't just be him who gets hurt," Hokuto finishes. "But you're not in any state to deal with her again. Especially not when you're already like this." It's useless to berate him. She can't make Subaru stop placing anyone else's life before his own - wouldn't have the right to, even if she could. He knows better than she can, after all, what his life is worth to him.

And she knows what it's worth to her.

Seishirou sits on the edge of the bed beside her, takes Subaru's shoulders and lowers him, carefully, until he's lying down, his forehead pressed to the outside of Seishirou's leg. She grins to see the flush that comes over his face, even in this state.

"At least rest a little before you go back out," he says calmly, and Subaru nods into the pillow.

"I will," he says. "I’m just going to..."

Seishirou runs his fingers through Subaru’s hair, smoothes it back from his face, and before long his eyes close, his breaths coming even and low.

"You know, I'm onto you, Sei-chan." Hokuto keeps her teasing low lest she wake her brother, rising from the bed to stand in front of Seishirou. "You've got him where you want him now, haven't you?"

"What, helpless and ready for the taking?" Seishirou supplies. "You've seen right through me, Hokuto-chan."

"And here I am about to leave him stranded, without even his big sister's protection," she sighs.

Seishirou’s fingers don’t stop moving, back and forth through Subaru’s hair. “You believe in our relationship that much?”

"Not just that," Hokuto says quietly. "I think I might know who cast the ikiryo."

She snags her purse from the back of a chair and starts to rifle through it, leaning in the bedroom doorway. One of Subaru's ofuda, made specifically for her - she still knew how to cast a barrier, though with only her power behind it it'll be too weak to be worth much as protection. A tube of lipstick, in case she needs to draw her own wards. If she has to fight, she’ll lose. But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

"Subaru-kun will cry if you get yourself hurt, you know," says Seishirou, watching her coolly from the bed.

"I'll just have to come back safe, then," she says, and then the thought hits her, and her smile grows sharp. "Or-- if you're worried, you could always come with me. It's not like I'd mind the backup."

Seishirou raises an eyebrow.

"You can drive us, even. It'll be convenient. Quick thinking, score one for Hokuto-chan!"

There’s no question that Sakurazuka Seishirou could hold out against the creature, if he wanted to. More easily than Subaru, possibly: he won’t be afraid to protect himself. What matters is whether he’s willing to admit it. And of course, more than anything, whether he wants to.”

“You know Subaru will go right back to that thing,” Hokuto says slowly, weighing her words. “And you know he'll run himself to death trying to defend against it rather than do something to hurt the caster. That's just how he is. You can't tell me you're ready to just let that happen, Sakurazuka Seishirou-chan."

He smiles, the bright sunny smile of the veterinarian Seishirou, and this time Hokuto doesn't return it. "Like I said," he replies, "you've seen right through me."

He's looking down at Subaru as though his gaze could pin him in place, fingers tangled in his hair as he lifts his head and places it gently on the pillow. Even when he stands and crosses to join Hokuto, he's still looking back with the same deliberate gaze.

It's not something she should trust for long. But for now, at least, it’s worth depending on.

***

Miho's apartment is in a large complex, the bustle of the city all around it. Hokuto has never tried to get there by car before.

"Why don't you get out and go on in," Seishirou says, while Hokuto plasters her face to the passenger window for a view. "I'll find parking and follow you up."

If anything Miho looks yet more haggard when she answers the door, her eyes sunken as if she hasn't slept since Hokuto has seen her. She peers through a crack in the door, but Hokuto tugs it the rest of the way open, wedges herself inside.

"Hokuto-chan?" Miho asks. "What's wrong?"

As soon as she steps through the door Hokuto knows she's in the right place. She doesn't need psychic power to feel the air thick with despair, weighing her down until she can barely speak. "That's what I was coming here to ask you." She swallows, forces the words out. “Daisuke Nakahara. That’s your father, right?”

She tells Miho about Subaru’s assignment, watches her face for recognition and tries to ignore the confusion and hurt. “I can’t blame you for being upset,” she finishes. “It’s not right for me to just barge in here and bring this up. But it’s hurting Subaru, so I’m involved that far.”

Miho sits back on the bed, her brows drawn down to shut her face from Hokuto. “I don’t know what the Sumeragi have to do with it,” she says, “but I told you. He doesn’t have anything to do with me, or I with him.”

Hokuto closes her eyes, reaches out with what vestiges of power she has, and immediately she snaps back in pain. The Miho she sees there is twisted, enough to twist the room around her, the complete mirror image of the picture of calm stillness she is in life, and it’s that more than anything that makes her understand.

“You don’t know you’re doing it, do you,” she says, and it’s not a question, because the Miho who’s slumping ever further into her bed isn’t the Miho that she’s talking to, and yet Hokuto is more aware than ever that she knows a lie when she sees one, and that this isn’t it. 

“You don’t know anything about it,” she says, the emotion gone from her voice as if in a trance.

“No,” says Hokuto, “I don’t. You don’t need to tell me either, if you don’t want to. But I have to admit I’m selfish. I don’t want you to hurt my brother, and I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

The air in the room thickens, sharpens. She imagines Seishirou coming in behind her, applauding her speech. Smiling an unfamiliar smile and doing whatever he needs to. It’ll end this, at least. But 

“I’m not telling you to forgive him,” she says. “I’m not that cliched.”

Miho’s blank face, her dull voice, are a total contrast to the threat pervading the air. “Then what do you want?”

“I want you to think about this from your own perspective!” Hokuto exclaims. “You’re in as bad a state as your father - as Nakahara is. Maybe more. Is that worth it to you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she hisses, and it’s the first emotion Hokuto’s heard in her voice since she got there, and when Miho looks up her face is sharp and savage, not her own anymore, no matter how similar. “I’m just as much to blame. I’m the one who allows this every time. I’m the one who still hopes it’ll get better. That he’ll change somehow, and it won’t end up like this.”

“What’s wrong with that? Everyone hopes for things to turn out well.”

“Because it’s stupid,” she says, “it’s pathetic-” and the air locks down around Hokuto until she can’t move, can hardly breathe at all. The words of a protection spell spring automatically into the back of her mind. It won’t be any help. Even if she had the power, all she could do is keep it at bay long enough to escape, and she doesn’t have it, doesn’t have enough at all. It was wrong of her to come, it was stupid, at best she’ll just get Miho hurt, and that’s if she doesn’t get herself killed first, and Subaru--

Subaru would have done it if she hadn’t, and for once with even less chance of success. And that’s enough for her to do it. That’s her choice.

The doubt still roils in the back of her mind, another part of the chaos howling through the room. “If that’s how you feel, then it’s no wonder you’re hurt. But think about it. Would things have turned out any different if you hadn’t wanted to believe in him? If you hadn’t tried.”

“I could have been stronger. I could have put that behind me, instead of clinging to it long after I knew it was pathetic.”

“Maybe,” Hokuto counters. “Or maybe you would have felt you’d given up something important to you without a fight. I can’t know that. I don’t think even you can.”

She’s creeping closer now, despite how weighed down she feels, and Miho’s eyes are on her, not staring off into space, and that’s enough. She’s doing something. 

“It’s shame that’s got you stuck here, isn’t it. Not just anger.” She keeps talking, keeps holding Miho’s gaze, and though the air feels cold enough to sting her face. It’s a show of selflessness, maybe; it’s also all she can do to get them out of here, for Subaru or for herself. “You don’t want to care, if it’s not being returned.”

“Why should I?” But the voice is Miho’s now, the eerie numbness fading. “Look how it turns out.”

“I can’t tell you you shouldn’t care about him. Not anymore than I can tell you that you should. I can’t tell you that no one would try, because I’ve seen what people can say. There are plenty of things to be hurt over, or angry - I’m sure things that I don’t even know about. So be hurt. Be angry. But it was your own feelings that made you care in the first place, right?

Miho doesn’t answer, which is enough.

“Then it’s not about how things turn out.” And her face looks almost normal now, twisted by tears instead of the unnatural rage, and Hokuto would be amazed by her success if she had a second to spare for it. “The feelings are yours. If you choose to care - if you choose to trust, even - how can anybody presume to tell you whether that was right or wrong.”

“Even me,” she says thinly, and her voice wavers but it’s not a question, not really.

“Even you.”

Miho nods, sags toward the edge of the bed, and Hokuto rushes forward to catch her. But the air doesn’t clear, the room keeps getting closer and closer, and Hokuto would panic but it’s like she’s forgotten how. She holds Miho close, starts to form the words of what wards she can muster. If that’s wrong, if they’re too weak to do anything - it’s too late to worry now.

From the corner of her eye she sees Seishirou standing by the closed door. He looks up at her almost carelessly, and she continues her futile chant, and meets his eyes.

***

"Hokuto-chan, don't you realize the kind of danger you were in?" Subaru fusses. "I don't know what I'd have done of you were hurt! Or..."

It’s not that he’s wrong. Hokuto knows well enough not to get involved in Subaru’s work. But she doesn’t regret it, so she just claps him on the back, hard, and pushes his drink across the cafe table towards him.

"Oh, Subaru!" she says. "I knew you'd react this way! Don't you trust your big sister?

"Of course I trust you," he says, hunching his shoulders, and Hokuto even feels a little bad for making fun of him. Well, almost.

“Don’t forget I was there too, Subaru-kun,” says Seishirou. “You can’t imagine I’d let your big sister come to harm.”

“What happened when you went back there, anyway, Subaru?”

"The ikiryo was still bound - I mean, of course it was, so she couldn't return to Nakahara-san's body. So I dispelled the binding, and sent her back." He pauses, twists his hands on the table. "It can't have been easy on her, though."

"She wasn't at school today, either," Hokuto admits. “I’d go over there and check on her myself, but...I don’t know if I’m the one she needs to see right now.

"I imagine she'll be all right," Seishirou supplies, taking another bite of his dessert. He's ordered a rather enormous ice cream cake, Hokuto suspects in hopes of sharing it with Subaru. A pity he's not playing along. "She did let it go of her own free will, after all."

“What?” asks Hokuto. “But she didn’t stop attacking when I was at Miho’s house.”

“Just letting go of it isn’t enough, by itself,” says Subaru. “Once her soul is split apart like that, the other part has its own will, in a sense. What did you say to her anyway, Hokuto-chan?”

"I thought it was rather wise," Seishirou says.

"What, you were there?" Hokuto asks. "I thought you didn't get there until it was just over."

"Oh, I don't think I saw that much. But there was so much going on it took me a moment to react to it. By the way, this cake is excellent. Won't you try a bite?"

"You're changing the subject, Sei-chan," says Hokuto, accepting the proffered cake. "Oh wow, you're right, it's delicious. Subaru, how can you turn down an offer from your fiancee?"

"I don't need--" he mutters, but Seishirou chooses that second to reach across the table and slide a piece of cake into his mouth, cutting him off.

"There you are, Sei-chan,” she says. “All yours.”

“So you approve of our relationship, Hokuto-chan?”

Hokuto helps herself to another large bite of the cake. "You can count on me. I believe in your love, Sei-chan.”

She laughs, long and loud, and Subaru flushes bright red, his eyes flicking up beneath his lashes to Seishirou’s face as though they can’t stay away. And if nothing else, it’s that that she believes in.


End file.
